For Better Time Management...

At the end of the day do you feel completely sapped and drained of energy, and yet you can’t point to anything you accomplished that had any real significance?

Yes?

Then you are probably confusing the urgent with the important.

The Eisenhower Matrix

President Dwight D. Eisenhower developed the "Eisenhower Matrix." It's a tool for figuring out what's important versus urgent in order to increase your productivity by allowing you to focus your time on tasks that are important but not urgent.

The Eisenhower Matrix allows you to sort your task list according to what's most important to you and what will have the most meaningful results. IIt is designed to help you become a more effective self-manager.

Here's the matrix. It is essentially a graph with four sections, or “quadrants.”

As you can see, the two main criteria that you use to evaluate each of your tasks and activities are Urgency and Importance. Urgent activities require your immediate attention. Important activities contribute to your mission, values, and goals.

The Difference Between Urgent and Important

Urgent means that a task requires immediate attention. These are the to-do’s that need to be done “Now!” Urgent tasks put us in a reactive mode, where we are defensive, negative, hurried, and narrowly-focused.

Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals. Sometimes important tasks are also urgent, but typically they’re not. When we focus on important activities we operate in a responsive mode. Being responsive helps us remain calm, rational, and open to new opportunities and solutions.

It’s a pretty intuitive distinction, and yet most of us frequently fall into the trap of believing that all urgent activities are also important. This habit probably has its origins in our evolutionary history, where our ancestors concentrated more on short-term concerns than on long-term strategy.

Quadrant 1. Urgent and Important

Quadrant 1 tasks are both urgent and important. These are tasks that require our immediate attention and also work towards fulfilling our long-term goals and missions in life.

Typically, Quadrant 1 tasks consist of crises, problems, and deadlines. Here are a few specific examples of Urgent and Important tasks:

• Certain emails (a job offer, a new opportunity requiring immediate action, etc.)

• Term paper deadline

• Tax deadline

• Spouse in the emergency room

• Car engine goes out

• Household chores

• A call from your kid’s school saying you need to come in to discuss their behavior

With a bit of planning and organization, many Q1 tasks can be made more efficient or even eliminated outright. For example, instead of waiting until the last minute to work on a term paper (making it into an urgent task), you can schedule your time so that your paper is completed a week in advance. Instead of waiting for something in your house to fall apart and need fixing, you can create and follow a regular maintenance schedule.

We will never be able to completely eliminate urgent and important tasks, but we can significantly reduce them by being proactive, and by spending more time in Quadrant 2.

Quadrant 2. Not Urgent but Important

Quadrant 2 tasks are the activities that don’t have a pressing deadline, but they do help you to achieve your important personal, school, and work goals as well as help to move you successfully through life.

Q2 tasks are typically centered around strengthening relationships, planning for the future, and improving yourself. Here are some specific examples of Not Urgent but Important Tasks:

• Weekly planning

• Long-term planning

• Exercising

• Family time

• Reading life-enriching books

• Journaling

• Taking a class to improve a skill

• Spending time with a rewarding hobby

• Studying

• Meditating

• Service

• Car and home maintenance

• Date night with wife

• Creating a budget and savings plan

It should be your goal to spend most of our time on Q2 activities. They are the ones that provide us with lasting happiness, fulfillment, and success. Unfortunately, there are some key challenges that keep us from investing enough time and energy on our Q2 tasks:

1. You don’t know what’s truly important to you. If you don’t have any idea what values and goals matter most to you, you obviously won’t know what things you should be spending your time on to reach those goals. Instead, you’ll latch on to whatever activities and to-dos are most urgent.

2. Present bias. We all have an inclination to focus on whatever is most pressing at the moment. This is our default mode. It’s hard to get motivated to do something when there isn’t a deadline looming over our head. Breaking this habit of running in place often takes willpower and self-discipline – qualities that don’t come naturally and must be actively cultivated and practiced.

3. We typically keep them forever on the backburner of our lives and tell ourselves, “I’ll get to those things ‘someday,’ after I’ve taken care of this urgent stuff.” We even put off figuring out what’s most important in life, which of course only keeps us stuck in the place where all we ever take care of are the most urgent to-dos on our list. But “someday” will never come. If you’re waiting to do the important stuff until your schedule clears up a little, then you aren’t moving forward. You’ll always feel about as busy as you are now, and if anything, life just gets busier the more we stay stuck in this cycle.

To overcome the habits that prevent us from focusing on Quadrant 2 activities, we must live our lives intentionally and proactively. You can’t live your life in the same way you always have and expect different things to happen. You have to consciously decide, “I’m going to make time for these things come hell or high water.”

Quadrant 3. Urgent and Not Important

Quadrant 3 tasks are activities that require our attention now (urgent), but don’t help us achieve our goals or fulfill our mission (not important). Most Q3 tasks are interruptions from other people and often involve helping them meet their own goals and fulfill their own priorities.

Here are some specific examples of Quadrant 3 activities:

• Phone calls

• Text messages

• Most emails (some emails could be urgent and important)

• Co-worker who comes by your desk during your prime working time to ask a favor

• Request from a former employee to write a letter of recommendation on his behalf (it’s probably important to him, but let’s face it, it’s probably not that important to you)

• Mom drops in unannounced and wants your help with a chore

Many people spend most of their time on Q3 tasks, while thinking they’re working in Q1. Because Q3 tasks do help others out, they definitely feel important. Plus they’re also usually tangible tasks, so completing them gives you that sense of satisfaction that comes from checking something off your list.

But it is important to recognize that Q3 tasks may be important to others, but ultimately they are not important to you. They’re not necessarily bad, but they need to be balanced with your Q2 activities. Otherwise, you’ll end up feeling like you’re getting a lot done from day-to-day, and eventually realize that you’re not actually making any progress in your own long-term goals. This has the potential to create personal frustration and resentment towards other people.

Those of us who spend most of their time working on Urgent but Not Important Tasks often suffer from “Nice Guy Syndrome,” and want to constantly please others at the expense of their own happiness, often without even realizing it. If that’s you, the solution is simple, but not necessarily easy. By becoming more assertive and firmly (but politely) saying no to most requests, you will have the time and energy to focus your attention on the things that are most important and beneficial to you.

Quadrant 4. Not Urgent and Not Important

Quadrant 4 activities aren’t urgent and aren’t important. They aren’t pressing and they do not help you achieve long-term goals. They are mostly distractions. Specific examples of Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks include:

• Watching TV

• Mindlessly surfing the web

• Playing video games

• Scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

• Gambling

• Shopping sprees

I think if most of us did a time audit on ourselves, we’d find that we spend a large amount of time on Q4 activities. We may notice this especially after we’ve spent hours surfing the web and realize we could have used that time more productively.

I don’t think you need to eliminate Q4 activities altogether from your life. After a particularly hectic and busy day, randomly browsing the internet or watching a favorite TV show for a half hour is exactly what my brain needs to decompress.

Instead of aiming to completely rid yourself of Not Urgent and Not Important tasks, try to only spend a very limited amount of time on them. 5% or less of your day is a good goal.

The Role of Hypnosis

Hypnosis can help you improve your Time Management Skills, not only by getting rid of whatever was keeping you ‘stuck,’ but also by helping you to intuitively recognize what is important and moving you toward your goals.

Hypnosis a very effective way to help us change some of those old patterns and subconscious beliefs that just don’t support our goals anymore. Using this tool can also help you uncover what’s really stopping you from making a change.

Once you remove what is stopping you from making a change, then you can re-write your story and recondition your mind with more positive mental imagery, positive feelings and supportive self-talk.

The most successful people operate at a level of the mind that supports continual personal positive change and growth. Hypnotherapy is a personal development process and a useful tool that can help us navigate around our deepest fears and bring us to the other side to experience real success with our productivity and time management.∎